Stitch Fix AI Try-Ons Drive Surge in Shopper Spend

Online personal styling service Stitch Fix is seeing a “significant lift” in spending from clients who engage with its tool that lets them see artificial intelligence-generated images of themselves wearing the outfits they’re considering, Stitch Fix CEO Matt Baer said during a Wednesday (Sept. 23) earnings call.

Stitch Fix announced in June that it expanded its AI style visualization platform, Stitch Fix Vision, which was launched in October, to enable clients to generate personalized imagery of themselves in recommended outfits. As clients browse outfits in the company’s Freestyle on-demand shop, they can select “See it on me” to see a personalized image based on a selfie they uploaded earlier.

Enhanced client engagement features are one of the ways in which Stitch Fix is reimagining the client experience, according to a presentation released Wednesday.

Since the launch of Vision, Stitch Fix has shared more than 22 million Vision images with clients, Baer said during the call.

“By combining AI with our deep understanding of each client’s preferences, Vision provides personalized style inspiration,” Baer said. “We continue to see a significant lift in 90-day Freestyle spend from clients who engage with it.”

Stitch Fix saw these results during a quarter in which the company’s net revenue increased 4.2% year over year, its active clients decreased 1.4% year over year and its net revenue per active client increased 7.8% year over year, according to a Wednesday press release.

Stitch Fix’s revenue growth outperformed the total U.S. apparel, footwear and accessories market, which was flat during the quarter, Baer said during the call.

“As always, technology remains at the core of our ability to serve our clients,” Baer said. “AI is a powerful accelerator of our strategy, and our 15 years of applying proprietary data and algorithms, paired with the expertise of our stylists, gives us a differentiated foundation for incorporating AI across both the client experience and our operations.”

AI is helping Stitch Fix operate more efficiently by supporting the company’s stylists in their item recommendations so they can focus on client service, by improving daily labor planning and real-time staff scheduling in the company’s fulfillment centers and by handling more routine requests in the company’s customer service function so that the team can focus on calls that require a higher touch, Baer said.

“Together, these applications improve productivity and lower our cost to serve,” Baer said.